First day of shooting with Luke. I must admit, I was a bit nervous. At the end of the day, Luke is a vet from Dorset and has never done anything like this before. We don’t just follow him and film what he does as a vet, he also presents to camera. It’s great to see how comfortable he handles Adam sticking the camera in his face. Absolutey no worries, Luke is a real natural.

Spent the day filming in a village on the outskirts of Lilongwe to highlight the good work that the LSPCA and RSPCA International perform. The day was great in terms of filming. However, a dog died during Luke’s first spay operation of the day – a procedure that he has performed hundreds of times before.

It was a big downer and raised questions in my head over the brevity of life. Humans are animals at the end of the day and we could be gone like that. For me personally it was extremely difficult to film Luke talking about the death of the dog, but I also think that it is essential to show both the good times and the bad.

On a completely separate note the crew (and I grudgingly include Luke Gamble in this category) were all given nicknames by the kids in the community. It started when they kept on chanting “Chucky! Chucky!” every time Marc walked past. When he asked them what they meant, he got the answer that they thought he was Chuck Norris. I never realised that I’ve been working with Chuck Norris. How lucky am I? Then they started going around the rest of the crew giving us names. So I’m hoping the credits will be listed as follows:

Marc “Chuck Norris” Rowedder
Adam “Rambo” Docker
Nathan “Bruce Lee” Carr
Luke “Jean Claude – the muscles from Brussels – Van Damme” Gamble

I somehow think that’s a bit long to put in the title though…

First thing was a revisit to Henry the python and releasing him to his new enclosure then off to the Chinsopa community to run a tx/vaccination and neutering programme. The vaccination and txs were managed by Lee (wildlife centre manager) whilst I worked with Richard and Joseph on the neutering. RSPCA International are funding this and they are setting up a brilliant programme – hats off to them for this.

Richard is a great surgeon and things were going well with castrates. I started off the spays, but incredibly sadly the first dog I operated on died. Felt terrible and I can only think I must have missed something on the pre-op assessment because the anaesthetic was text book and the surgery was going very well. I would have got the spay wrapped up in about 20-25mins. She was quite anaemic and very thin so the whole ordeal was too much for her.

Thankfully her puppies had been weaned and were well away from her. Recovering from that was difficult, but to keep the faith of the communities I had to operate on another bitch – it was only after that op that I found out that the other dog I had spayed belonged to the other brother of the same family! It was awful watching the family walk away and I felt dreadful, but the second dog was fine. Can’t believe it as I’ve used that anaesthetic mix on hundreds of dogs in similar situations. Horrible reminder of how brutal this can be.

Hard place to operate as no proper recovery and the animals are released hours after surgery – not ideal and we’ve got to work out a plan that ensures they have time to recovery from the op. After that it was back to the centre to try to release a duiker before heading out for a pizza. Tomorrow feels like it is coming along very quickly – no bad thing because when things are tough it’s always best to knuckle down and focus on all the other animals that need help.

Really funny thing about today was the nicknames we were all given by the boys watching us: Marc was called Chuck Norris, Adam was Schwarzenegger, Nathan was Bruce Lee and I was Van Damme. Probably would have preferred Steven Seagal but Van Damme isn’t bad. Nathan is now firmly called Bruce from here on in, he’s definitely got a steely glint in his eye – one to watch.

Felt a bit rough today. Think the lack of sleep after the long flight, some dodgy food, dehydration and a combination of malaria tablets, five inoculations the week before and a cold that I never fully recovered from have added up to make me feel very tired. Another good day filming, although quite long – it took us over an hour to film a scene of Luke buying dog food for the three-legged dog that he saved on Friday.

We’re trying to think up names for the dog, which has made a great recovery. Adam wants to call her Diana, Luke wants something like Lucky or Hope in Malawian, but I personally think that she should be called a traditional Malawian canine name: Bruce. They’re all called Bruce, Tiger or Lion out here…

Oh spent a great evening at one of the charity organisers house eating a proper homemade meal and watching the Liver vs Aston game (Marc thinks football team names should be shortened to the beginning of the name???). The evening descended into an 80s music fest though – making me feel quite young amongst these 30 to 40 year-olds…

Went to Richard’s house to check on the dog with the pups. She is doing brilliantly. She was really pleased to see us all and definitely raises the spirits. All of us were amazed at how she is recovering. Real joy at seeing her and she was wagging her tail and very content. No swelling and the wound looks great. She is going to make it – I’m so happy about it. It was a bit of an epic today – filming in the supermarket buying her some dog food. I had to do a million takes but the guys were patient as always… 

At the Wildlife centre Lee released the leopard back into its enclosure, and a female vervet monkey was brought in that had just been run over. Sadly the poor thing was dead by the time it arrived.

Party at one of the trustee’s houses tonight (Bev’s): great house, super food and they are a great bunch. Glad of the chance to show off my amazing pool skills and lose about 6 matches in a row – kept the guys happy!

Felt a lot better today. A good nights sleep was all that was needed and a dose of energy tablets from Luke. We spent the day filming in the local communities again working with cattle and livestock.

Great day and really felt like the LSPCA were doing some amazing work. We all got called our new martial arts nicknames again – these kids are crazy. Had a couple of dodgy moments today: Marc drove over someone’s sugar cane stall that was lying by the side of the road and felt the need to pay the owner for the damage he had caused. Big mistake. He then got hustled out of paying even more and all hell broke loose as kids ran in and stole sugar cane. It was pandemonium. Then we stopped about 500 yards down the road to do a piece to camera. Adam stepped out of the car holding the camera and didn’t realize that the sewer was right below him. He fell. The camera fell. And the matte box (the part on the front that holds the filters) broke off. All of them landed in the mud (I’m writing mud, but I believe it consisted of other more interesting substances). Adam was a bit bruised and smelly and the camera was fine.

On a last note: nobody is allowed to touch Luke “van Damme” Gamble. He doesn’t like it. But I’m pretty certain that I brushed past him when putting the radio mic on today…

Bruce Lee (Nathan) touched me. Big problem there, but I’ve had a quiet word – I don’t like to make a fuss about this sort of thing, but the touching is a line that can’t be crossed. I can put my own microphone on – it’s not hard, a monkey could do it. I tried not to be over the top about the incident, but it isn’t right. He shouldn’t try to put his hands down my shirt – Bruce Lee or not. Other than that it was a fantastic day. Adam was hardcore lugging the camera around, that thing (the camera) is really heavy and he had to shoot all day from the shoulder, which would have been a killer. He hopefully got some great shots though and the work was exactly the sort of thing I love.

We were working in one of the poorest communities surrounding Lilongwe and it was the first trip to run a livestock programme. I get so inspired by this as although I love working with dogs and cats, doing the graft with donkeys, cows, chickens and goats is something that really benefits the people. The kids in the village were really good fun and at the end of it the village chief gave me four corn on the cobs. Big gift as taking food from people who are so poor felt wrong, but I couldn’t refuse as it would have been rude.

One incident that won’t make the shoot was a man from the village asked me to look at a horrible wound that was around his genitals. It was infected and very nasty – no idea how he got that, maybe a boil that had burst and got infected, but the poor guy could hardly walk. Popped him on a course of penicillin and told him to keep it clean and buy some tincture of iodine. I hope he does okay. Ethically these sort of situations are a nightmare. As soon as you help one person then they all start coming and I’m not a doctor and I don’t know how to treat them. Very difficult when they have no one else to turn too.

A lot of the kids had ringworm and were very thin. Clement (one the Rescue Centre Staff) is a really warm, nice guy and told me infant mortality is very high there. I can believe it as the public health and hygiene isn’t great. A lot of human waste and toilet blocks were grim shacks with fairly full pits of waste. Reminded me a bit of the refugee camps in Kenya (where I went with a  team in 2008) and almost as bad to be honest. Lots of sweet little babies in dreadful conditions. I really struggle to relate these conditions to my home. I’m so lucky to be where I am, it really makes me miss home. I just want to hug Noah and Cordelia after days like these. It’s a hard world, not just if you are a mangy street dog, that’s for sure.

Adam was coughing like a fiend last night – almost had to smother him, but probably all’s even considering I kept him up the other night by sleep talking. Apparently I was sitting bolt upright in bed having a chat with someone. I’ve told Adam to relax because a) Rambo wouldn’t have been unnerved and b) I was probably going over a piece to camera for the hundredth time for him. Anyway, we’ve got him some Malawian cough medicine so hopefully it will do the trick and he‘ll sleep through anything!

Working with vervet monkeys and baby baboons today. One of the baby baboons took a bit of a shine to me, much to the huge amusement of the crew. I’m trying to look at the positives of having a unique experience not many others will have had. Having that sort of loving affection from a baby baboon wasn’t on my top ten list of must have experiences. At least ‘Bruce Lee’ has started to call me The Talent – he’s getting the hang of it – no irony I’m certain.

“The Talent”, previously known as Luke “Van Damme” Gamble, got into a bit of an x-rated situation today as he was forcibly abused by a baboon called Bruiser. I don’t want to go into details as it was pretty traumatizing for myself and I presume even worse for “The Talent”. But the baboon DEFINITELY touched him.

We also decided to film “The Talent’s” introduction scene to Lee from the Lilongwe Wildlife Centre despite the fact “The Talent” now has a sunny red tan and five days of bum fluff growth on his face. I’m sure the viewers won’t notice – probably because after sixty takes of extremely forced greetings the footage won’t be used…

Up at 5am, packed and a 4 hour drive to Kasungu National Park.

Met two very inspiring people: Andrea and Jane who are research scientists deep in the bush monitoring the release of the baboons back into the wild. It was incredible to see them back in their natural environment after being rescued from horrible conditions (bush meat trade/poaching/zoo confiscations) and then being rehabilitated at the centre ready for release.

This was the first group of baboons the centre has released back into the wild and it really was a privilege to witness the baboons frolicking and playing around. There was a lot of tracking through deep bush and a close encounter with some angry elephants (not friendly as poaching is such a problem in the park). 

Really interesting fact was that they need to train the baboons to be afraid of snakes and birds of prey and they do this with motorised birds and snakes, which they drag along the pens whilst playing baboon alarm calls on a radio so the baboons can learn that these things mean danger.

Great dinner and Marc drove us back – got a front seat so that was a luxury – and back home just before midnight. Found the day really interesting, loved meeting the baboons 2 days ago and inspiring to meet people who are caring and working so hard to protect the wildlife.